Photography

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soundgen
Victor V
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Re: Photography

Post by soundgen »

Photo from the £10 lightbox , it's OK I suppose and better than the original BUT natural light is better :(
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Kimberlibre
Victor Jr
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Re: Photography

Post by Kimberlibre »

Totally agree with you ! Natural light is sooo much better.I really like the photos made, especially in the golden hour.The portraits are unique!
I've made some photoshoots for product marketing and choose the golden hour light. The results were stunning!
As well I got some tips from https://www.wanderlustportraits.com, and my clients really enjoyed the final product. Keep experimenting, bud!
But don't forget the natural light is your best friend. Although the artificial one can do some things that you won't get with the help of the sun , you still have to buy some qualitative products!

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Curt A
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Re: Photography

Post by Curt A »

The REAL issue regarding excellent quality pictures of items, people, scenery or anything else is that most people don't use cameras anymore. Phones take "acceptable" pictures, but there is no substitute for using a good quality digital SLR camera. You need one that allows you to adjust the light and color balance settings using an 18% neutral grey card as a reference.
"The phonograph† is not of any commercial value."
Thomas Alva Edison - Comment to his assistant, Samuel Insull.

"No one needs a Victrola XX, a Perfected Graphophone Type G, or whatever you call those noisy things."
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Curt A
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Re: Photography

Post by Curt A »

Here is a before and after of your lightbox pic with a couple of minutes of manual adjustments using a simple photo editing program to adjust the fill light, highlights, shadows and neutral color. This was done using a free editor called Picasa, which gives quick, satisfactory results. Another free editor with many of the same abilities as PhotoShop is called GIMP. GIMP has a little bit of a learning curve, making it more complex than Picasa, but very much worthwhile. There are many free tutorials for GIMP and you can do some amazing things.
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"The phonograph† is not of any commercial value."
Thomas Alva Edison - Comment to his assistant, Samuel Insull.

"No one needs a Victrola XX, a Perfected Graphophone Type G, or whatever you call those noisy things."
My Wife

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AudioFeline
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Re: Photography

Post by AudioFeline »

re: artificial lights - different artificial lights have different colour. Most people don't notice, but photographers learn to identify the different colours, and the different colours become pronounced in photographs. In the film days of photography, there was colour film made for daylight (outdoors), photos taken indoor with incandescent light would have a strong orange cast unless a filter was used. If indoor film used outdoor would have a blue cast unless a filter was used. Fluroescent lights would often give a green cast. Modern digital cameras have a "white balance" setting, which will adjust the colour cast based on lighting on a white sheet of paper in the scene you are photographing. As mentioned above, learning a digital photo editing program (eg. Gimp, Photoshop, etc) will alllow adjustments of colour balance/brightness/contrast/gamma correction to improve the images - most photos will benefit from some adjustment (and cropping). Most of the free photo editors are quite good now, and there are lots of tutorials and youtube videos to help you learn and understand these functions. Don't get overwhelmed by the complexity of these programs - 90% of retouching uses less than 10% of the program's features. The example in the previous post is an excellent demonstration of the power of these tools.

Photography hint: When taking photos of objects in natural light or artificial light, it can be good to have a reflector (facing the lightsource) that bounces some light into the shadows, giving more detail in the shot. It's not to eliminate the shadow, but to allow some detail to be seen. The reflector can be a sheet of white cardboard. There are lots of tutorials on taking photos on the web and youtubes, for more info.

phonojim
Victor IV
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Re: Photography

Post by phonojim »

One of my problems with photography is that I am 76 years old and not terribly steady when it comes to holding a camera. I have found that I can take very good available light pictures by mounting the camera on a tripod, setting the timer for two seconds and pressing the button. In two seconds my hands are well away and the camera can do its own thing. Many times I will take several shots at different settings so that I have a better chance to get the results that I want. This also works well for before pictures when I am doing electronic/mechanical restoration. I am able to take pictures close and sharp enough to be able to read component values and color codes in electronics.

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Curt A
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Re: Photography

Post by Curt A »

Jim, I'm 72 and have an essential tremor in my hands which makes simple tasks frustrating. Even with steady hands the use of a tripod and the timer is essential for getting good quality shots. Just the vibration from pressing the camera or phone button is enough to blur a shot...
"The phonograph† is not of any commercial value."
Thomas Alva Edison - Comment to his assistant, Samuel Insull.

"No one needs a Victrola XX, a Perfected Graphophone Type G, or whatever you call those noisy things."
My Wife

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